Sunday, February 26, 2006

They're having a moment of insistance that I feed my season ticket through the barriers each day again, rather than shgowing it to the chap at the gate, and barely breaking pace.

The tickets are truly awful - an annual ticket, made out of card and with a mag stripe is expected to last for one year (hahahahah) and when it is taken out of the wallet, fed through the barrier a couple of times to account for misfeeds, and eventually gets read, the barriers will let you through. Or not.

Conveniently, my ticket, which expires on 6/6/6 - oh how I laughed when I got that one, has stopped working int he barriers, and the gate staff are only too happy to let me through again. Trouble is, the evening staff are different, and I have to show the ticket fails to read first, wasting my time and theirs. I am mostly worried about wasting my time though.

The reply from First Scotrail was that I could get my ticket replaced free of charge. Whilst the ticket may be free, my time is not. I shouldn't have to go through this hassle, as a regular traveller, sinply beacuse they implemented a poor technology for frequent travellers. They should use a RFID based system, like the Oyster card in London, or the badge that gets me into my place of work... Or like Lothian Buses use for their season ticket holders... But that would be too sensible!

Oh well, looks like I'll have to visit one of the magnetic field testing laboratories at work again, or leave the ticket on top of a large three phase motor for a wee while.

Are the governement hell bent on destroying this country? The beeb report that more Lords reforms are on the way, held back ny the stumbling block of MPs not knowing how to proceed - now there's a surprise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4751866.stm

I think the MPs are just pissed off that the Lords have kicked a number of their pet projects into touch - and for very good reason. The worrying thing is Parliament are too willing to invoke the Parliament Act to poke bills through into law. This is a shameful and bare-faced erosion of due diligence in out governance. I think the commons should be reformed - give the MPs a taste of their own medicine - the Lords have been looking out for us on civil liberties - Hunting, (soon to be fishing as well, I hear), ID cards... Anti Terrorism, the list goes on.

Well, their lordships have my support. And my MP will get a boot up his arse. (In writing, obviously, since I wouldn't recognise the reprobate if I saw them).

The SRC having raised an emergency motion, which clearly wasn't an emergency - they knew damn fine Boris Johnson was standing, the motion was that EUSA should take a position on the election, and campaign against Boris.

What wasn't mentioned, of course, was that two of the Sabbs were in the opposing camp for Mark Baaaaaaallard. They mentioned it in a couple of early press releases, before EUSA had a position, but strangely failed to mention it again after the bowel motion passed.

Given I am no longer a student, I can't really complain about the SRC making a mockery out of the elections, and themselves, again, however what concerns me is the anti conservative propaganda that was put up funded by EUSA, and that the same people putting up this propaganda were putting up Baaaaaaallard posters. Perhaps they were "wearing different hats" at the time, or perhaps my friends who saw this were hallucinating from an over indulgence of Nestle products.

Anyway, the elections came and went, and Baaaaaaallard won. However, if Baaaaaaallard was so for EUSA, how come he only took out Life Membership a couple of years ago? How come he has been sniffing around at P&P motions - and rumour has it voted for the ban coke motion on a previous occasion? How come he didn't help set up a meeting with Lothian Buses to get EUSA talking to them regarding mature student bus passes... Oh, that's because Boris got it squared away. At the end of the day, Boris is still a legend, and Baaaaaaallard is still a waste of tax payers money that is only there due to a party list.

EUU is now losing members over this - one has opted out of the Association (and therefore the union) and another was making enquiries about how to do it...

This is by far the worst year of EUSA I have had the misfortune to be here to see. We old people only can think of 1 person opting out, and that was more of a legend - I don't think anyone actually knew the guy. This, in the here and now, is rather worrying. We have a shower of lefties who are causing sufficient offence to conservative minded people that they are leaving.

The worst thing is, they who have been making these decisions are unrepentant. Then again, they get to leave after a year or so... The old school who stay around are left wondering if they should try to pick up the pieces, defend the Union's honour, or just let it rot. Perhaps it is some sort of misguided loyalty that keeps me involved. All of those years on the House Committee at Teviot Row, perhaps I feel I need to give something back? Perhaps I am yearning for a return to the glory days where teviot was full on a Friday night...

How did we get into this mess? Perhaps, more importantly, how do we get out of this mess?